May 21, 2002
-
One Small Universe
As Zinc put away his Legos, he couldn’t help but think how cool they were. Not as messy as clay or Playdoh, you could clean them up with Tonka bulldozer cuz they didn’t get stuck in the carpet…
Would you like to make some really interesting things with them? I can show you.
…and you could mix the colors and not have to worry about everything ending up that boring shade of gray all the time. Plus, granny had given him some really neat ones that came with instructions. He didn’t think he’d like to be told how to play with them, that seemed a little silly; but it was a challenge he found he rather enjoyed. It reminded him of a jigsaw puzzle really, but you could play with it afterward. How many jigsaw puzzles can you say THAT about…
Puzzles. Ah yes. The world IS a puzzle young human…how many pieces do you think make up its edge? Define its boarders? Are there good pieces? Bad pieces? Forbidden…pieces? I wonder what those would look like.
Dad would be here in a moment to go over his exercises; the phone…he remembered the phone ringing earlier. He hoped that wasn’t his Ms. Blanchard…she was his favorite teacher, she always listened to him…
I know why she’s your favorite, and so do you. You just won’t admit it to yourself little one. The way she still moves a little when she stops moving just inside her blouse…I know what you’re thi….arrrgh!
The voice in his head, the one he couldn’t get away from, the one that was there every waking moment of his life. Zinc had focused his will into an interlocking zipper of razors, cutting the voice short mid-sentence and strangling it into silence like the wringing of a wet dishrag caught in the prop of an outboard motor. But those last words hung in his mind like a neon thought suspended from an invisible airship. A lonely echo in a large, empty room. “I know what you’re thinking.” He hated that that was true; it was. But that didn’t stop it from accusing him of thoughts that weren’t his. Ms. Blanchard was the closest thing he’d ever had to a friend in his life; and though his method of dealing with Jak would make him very angry later, he’d learned not to even THINK things apologetic when it came to him. He wasn’t going to allow him to say things like that, ever. He called him Jak. Zinc really didn’t know if Jak was a ‘him’ or an ‘it’…he thought of the ageless entity as a caged animal. A pet he couldn’t get rid of, because…a silent laugh…who would want to adopt THAT?
Jak would never admit it, but this was far closer to the truth than even Zinc realized, and that made him very…very angry.
Comments (7)
You are funnier than woody allen at his best...you keeeeeeel me.
I love my bub's harry potter legos...Hagrid in particular (mmmmm...Robbie Coltraine). I carry him around in my pocket, until I am discovered and have to return him to his lego lair...
wow . . . your not stoping it here are you?
~ torri
DocEvil: I like to think of myself as a cross between Douglas Adams, Piers Anthony, and room filled with one hundred million monkeys on typewriters. But Woody, that's high praise...thank you!
As for Legos, I have this fond/guilty memory of my middle brother making this brick of Legos with wheels on the bottom. He had put them together and mushed them tight by standing on the brick with it sitting on the tile floor in the kitchen.
"Look, it's an indestructable car."
"Really? Let me see, roll it here."
(naive little brother rolls car to evil big brother)
"Hmmm, pretty hefty..." *crash!* goes the car on the tile floor, exploding into its component bricks in a clattering, multi-colored cloud of plastic "...but indestructable? Nope."
"Mooooooommmmm!"
torri: Of course I'm not stopping there! There's a difference between suspense, and torture.
oh but you are so good at torture....
I agree totally with your comments about our lovely school system. I retired years ago when I was attacked by a student who was failing my English but wanted to play in a school basketball. No pass no play. Tell that to the surgeon who had to remove several pieces of knife metal from my back! Ironically, even though I returned to sub for desperate need of money..my own kids are actually home schooled!
...pointy ears because I am vulcan.
I knew it...we don't grow 'em as smart as you 'round these parts. You HAD to be from up the road a piece.
pbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb!
Comments are closed.